Magic Theory

Cursed witch Jolene’s only remaining power is the ability to speak to animals. When a baker drops dead during a royal competition, she teams up with her cute cop boyfriend and his sassy, lie-sniffing canine to serve up the killer. But the stakes are raised as Jolene ties the case to a missing politician, a fiendish crime boss, and a flock of shifters trapped in their animal forms. As she uses her magic to sniff out the suspects, Jolene’s own life is put on the line. Luckily, she’s got a bunch of powerful new friends with ties to the palace on her side.

This revised, expanded, and updated edition of the 1979 landmark Breaking the Magic Spell examines the enduring power of fairy tales and the ways they invade our subjective world. In seven provocative essays, Zipes discusses the importance of investigating oral folk tales in their socio-political context and traces their evolution into literary fairy tales, a metamorphosis that often diminished the ideology of the original narrative.